


through the cold and through the dark

by finaljoy



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Crime Fighting, Dubious Science, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Science Fiction, Snowed In, Threats of Violence, Whump, dorian is a puppy and john is a dear, drugged kidnapping, no one can tell me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2381747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finaljoy/pseuds/finaljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knew he shouldn't jerk the girl up by her jacket, but he was more concerned about escaping a snowed in warehouse filled with a psychopath, several incapacitated synthetics, a dysfunctional leg, and a barely conscious little girl. Plus he's drugged to the teeth, so there's that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through the cold and through the dark

**Author's Note:**

> It started out as a fun, light little thing where I casually sauntered into writing for Almost Human for the first time. It was supposed to be something with Kennex comforting someone, but then it just mutated into this huge gnarly mess of Kennex comforting whilst being whumped himself, and who was I to disagree?
> 
> Thanks to the darlings at TBB for helping me catch my crazy blitz writing mistakes :)

"I must really thank you all for doing this," the man said, giving John and Dorian a tired smile. Dorian gave his typical look-I-just-saved-a-puppy-from-a-highway-while-making-fifteen-pies-from-scratch-aren't-I-the-American-Dream? grin, while John settled for his typical hey-be-happy-I'm-not-glaring smile.

"Not at all, sir, I'm just happy we managed to figure out their plot beforehand."

"Yes, I'm terrified to think about what might have happened to Clarisse otherwise."

"Don't worry, sir, you're in good hands."

The man gave a thin smile, though he still looked rather nervous. But then, John figured he had very good reason.

Walter Grey was one of two men with access codes to an extremely powerful satellite. It had been made for a major telecommunications company, one that currently had control over a hefty portion of the world's communication. The satellite was border line military-grade technology, and had the capability to handle at least twice as many signals as the prior model on a fraction of the energy.

It also had the benefit of being able to send a variety of signals at the same time in several directions, which, John assumed, would make anyone with a remote interest in such things become all hot and bothered. He, however, saw the satellite as a great big threat that practically any crazy terrorist group could exploit. As it was, about a dozen small scale operations were already targeting the satellite now, while the security system was still navigable. In a week, upgrades would be completed and the security system would be able to kick out any hacker that tried to strong arm their way in.

So far, only one group in particular had caught the police's eye. They were called Verge, and were up and coming in the world of menacing and blackmail. They were the kind of annoying group that acquired whatever information other organizations needed. Verge was a strictly mercenary operation, gladly serving as a gateway for bigger, badder groups. To add to the whole thing, Verge was not the least bit afraid of doing whatever necessary to achieve their goal, and if that meant kidnap, torture, or even murder, then they would do it in a brutally simple fashion. This the police had learned after Grey's partner had been found dead on the side of a road after he had informed the police of threats the terrorists' had made to gain the codes.

John made his smile at the man a little bit more sincere, and turned to leave. A little girl's voice bounced down from the staircase behind Grey, making all three of them turn and look.

"Dad?"

Grey smiled at the girl on the middle of the staircase, and gestured for her to stand by him.

"Clarisse, these are the men heading the protection unit," Grey said, wrapping his arm around the girl. She had large, dark eyes, wavy red hair, and a splatter of freckles across her face and arms. Other than that, she looked exactly like a doll, thin and probably light enough that a good gust could knock her over. Clarisse gave them an embarrassed smile as John and Dorian introduced themselves. She shook their hands in turn and mumbled out her name, then just watched them.

"We're going to make sure you stay safe," Dorian assured, and she nodded.

"Thank you," she said, probably having an internal swoon or two over Dorian already. "How d—never mind."

"No, go ahead," John said, waving a hand at her. She seemed to swallow, then asked, "How do you have the courage to…to do this? Aren't you scared of the trouble we're in?"

"Well, Clarisse," John began, glancing at Dorian, "to tell you the truth, you're always going to be scared. Not enough to stop you from doing the job, but enough to remind you that what you're doing is dangerous, and that you need to be careful. And besides, at this point, trouble  _is_  my business."

Clarisse nodded and gave him a smile, looking a little more reassured.

Dorian elbowed John as they walked away from the house, a smug grin plastered to his face.

"'Trouble is my business', eh?"

"Shut up, or I'll give  _you_  trouble," John grumbled, settling a little further in his coat.

"Oh, no, I'm alright. After all,  _trouble is my business_."

"I swear, if you don't shut up, I'm going to use that pulse thing Rudy gave me," John warned, moving as if to pull the device out. Rudy had been bouncing all over the lab when John had picked Dorian up, chattering away about something he had refined. Apparently it was capable of emitting something like an electromagnetic pulse for up to a hundred yards, and could take out normal electronics along with robots. Even better, it looked almost exactly like a large plastic bottle lid, with the exception of a very small on button on the cap's underside.

Dorian stopped grinning at the mention of the thing, and nearly stopped walking.

"That's not something to joke about, John."

John broke into a grin for a few steps, before he heard Dorian grumbling under his breath.

"Look at me, I'm John Kennex. Big bad police officer because I have an unregistered pulse device and trouble is my business."

John rolled his eyes, and thought that some days, a DRN unit was  _not_  worth the hassle.

* * *

"Detective Kennex, Detective Kennex! I can't find my daughter!" Grey shouted at him, running frantically from the house. John turned away from the MX he had been speaking to, feeling his whole body tense.

"You can't find her? Are you—"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure!" he gasped, pulling his over shirt back onto his shoulder. "I've searched the entire house, and in the yard. Clarisse isn't the type to just wander off, or not come when I call her. I asked the MX inside the house, but he…he said that he couldn't detect her inside, either!"

"Okay, Mr. Grey, we've got people on it," John said, raising his hands as if to push down the man's anxiety. He glanced at Dorian, who nodded, clearly alerting the rest of the MXes. "Now, do you have any idea  _where_  she might be, where she might have gone? We have to check all the possibilities."

"Yes, yes, earlier she was talking about going out into the woods. I told her not to," Grey added hurriedly, noting John's expression. "She's rather fond of the outdoors, but I said that she had to stay inside, that you couldn't spare an MX to escort her everywhere she wanted to go."

"Alright, Mr. Grey, when did you tell her this?"

"Not even an hour ago. I could have sworn she listened to me, and I didn't see her go out, but I have no idea where else she might be!"

"Mr. Grey, we'll do all we can to get Clarisse back," John said, pushing away his annoyance with the man. If Clarisse had snuck out of the house, against all common sense and warning, with a horde of ruthless criminals hunting for them, then it was her own damn fault, not her father's.

"We'll have her back before you know it," Dorian said, putting a hand on the man's shoulder. "Please, wait in your house with your designated MX until someone from the unit contacts you. Clarisse will be fine."

Grey nodded and allowed himself to be herded back to the house by an MX. He strained to look at them as he walked, though, wearing the expression of a very desperate man.

"Please, find my daughter! I don't…I need her. I don't have anyone else."

* * *

John had only been searching for a few minutes when he saw a small white button. He had just split off from Dorian to search a part of the small woods around Grey's house, rooting through the fallen leaves and thickets of spindly trees. The button had stood out like a flare amidst so much dull brown and grey, and seemed like an impossible bit of good luck.

He bent down to pick it up, smiling when he was certain it was the same sort of button Clarisse had on her sweater. He was even more focused now, eyes and ears straining for any sort of sign of the girl.

"Any luck, John?" Dorian asked, voice a whisper in John's earpiece. John put the button in his pocket, now unfazed by Dorian's uncanny timing.

"Yeah, just found one of her buttons by a log. Hopefully she's nearby."

"Do you want me to come towards you?"

"No, keep looking for her. I'm not sure if it's anything substantial."

John kept walking, trying to catch any signs of disturbed wildlife. He found himself rolling his eyes as he thought about old movies with trackers smelling the ground and staring profoundly at jostled bushes, thinking that a sharp girl like Clarisse wasn't about to go mowing down a path through the underbrush.

A few minutes later, he found another button, this one placed on top of a stone. He blinked and picked it up, then kept going.

"Dorian, I think this button thing is panning out into something more. Standby as I look a little further."

He hadn't taken more than a handful of steps when he stopped dead, glancing back to where the button had been. The button had been in far too an ideal spot for it to have fallen by chance. And given the neat line it made with the previous one...

 _Breadcrumbs._  Clarisse had been leaving a trail for her to follow back when she decided to return. So she wasn't running away, after all, just exploring. John ran a hand through his hair in exasperation at the willfulness of the girl, but kept moving. Something rubbed against this idea, whispering to him that that wasn't quite right, but he couldn't decide what it was until he found the next button.

Grey had said that Clarisse liked the outdoors, which meant she had probably been all through these woods. She didn't need a  _trail_  to find her way home. Even if she had left her cell phone and couldn't use it as a compass, she just had to pick a direction and walk towards it, and soon enough she would have been out of the small thicket and able to return home from there. So it wasn't a trail of breadcrumbs for her to use to return home. It was a trail for him to follow. It was a trap.

John had barely registered this when something slapped against his neck. He tried drawing his gun, or giving off a warning to Dorian, but he felt his tongue turning thick and suddenly the trees were swooping around him. He staggered, trying to claw the thing off his neck, trying to see who had tagged him, or if Dorian was anywhere nearby. John stumbled around for a moment, then felt himself careening forward, reaching darkness before he hit the fallen leaves.

* * *

"Detective? Detective, is the drug wearing off?"

John felt like his entire world was wobbling around, like one of those old hand held games where you tried to drop the marble into the hole. Only he was the marble and this tilting was going to make him vomit right where he lay.

He groaned, trying to get a hold of his senses. Different impressions stabbed out at him: a freezing floor, a voice, a woman's voice, the smell of dust and cold, the flat, listless taste he got after having been in restless sleep for too long. John tried sitting up, but his limbs seemed to have been turned into silicone, making then unwieldy and weak.

"Hello, Detective. Good to see you moving. We can start talking now."

"Where…where are we?" he grunted, the words coming out awkward and slurred ( _wur'er weh?)._  The woman laughed, a little, tinkling sound that grated in his head and made him realize he had a _horrible_  headache. John scowled into the ground, and tried to turn his head so that he was looking at her. After a few moments he caught sight of a few fuzzy blobs that eventually resolved themselves into a woman's heels and a swatch of her legs.

"We, my dear detective, are at a crossroads. Do you remember what happened?"

He was quiet, straining to remember, straining to make himself  _think_ , but whatever they had drugged him with had screwed his ass six ways from Sunday.

"That's alright, it always takes people a few moments to regain their wits after we dose them up. I'll give you a hint. You were in the woods."

The woods? Why had he been in the  _woods_?

A button. The image of a small white button popped into his head, perched on his hand after he had picked it up from the ground. There had been fallen leaves everywhere, yes, but why had he been…

" _Clarisse_."

"Clarisse, yes, you remember!" The woman was clearly delighted that he was able to process things again, the joy bubbling over in her voice. "Now. If you would just look to your right…"

As if pulled by a string, John found his head turning to the side to see a small heap of a thing. The messy spill of ginger hair told him right away that it was Clarisse, bound and looking even more out of it than he was. He wasn't even sure if she was conscious, or alive. For a moment he felt his heart quicken, consuming him with anxiety and rage, but he forced it back, trying to think of a way out.

"Now. Since we've moved all of this out of the way, we can get to business. As you will learn, Detective Kennex, I have a particular fondness of doing things  _efficiently._  No extra time, no extra hassle."

"An economical woman, my favorite," he grumbled, making her chuckle. He wasn't sure if it was more satisfaction of his returning wit, or the fact that his words were still pretty slurred, but then, he had bigger things to be worrying about. He could see the slight gleam of a synthetic's processing lights in the murk of the…where ever he was, which did not spell good things for him or Clarisse.

John tried to shift into a more convenient position, but found himself unable to move his right leg. Through his disorientation, he saw that it was splayed out behind him, seeming stuck to some sort of glowing plate in the floor.

"Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten to mention it. Your prosthetic leg is currently rendered useless by that panel there. No real harm is coming to it, you'll find, but you will be unable to move it until I release you. Consider it our form of handcuffing you to a chair."

John rolled his eyes and mumbled something out ( _fagov, lidy),_ wishing he didn't feel like cement had replaced his blood.

"Detective, are you familiar with the purpose of my organization?"

"Assuming you're the whackjobs that are after Grey, then yes. You sell havoc to the highest bidder."

"How poetic. We simply provide means to our benefactors. They need access to a certain person, a set of codes, or a specific date, we arrange it. No different than…glorified secretaries. Certainly not worth the efforts or attention of the governments and policing forces that pursue us."

"I'm sure."

John was pretty certain that they were in a warehouse, one a  _long_  way from the city, if the biting cold was any indicator. He could clearly make out the woman's face now, and saw that it was exceptionally pleasant for a person directly involved behind their kidnapping. She had a mellow smile and a plain set of features, but the way she spoke so casually about enabling terrorism and assassinations made his skin crawl.

"Now. I would like you to call the dear Mr. Grey, and tell him that our organization has been stopped. He is free to turn on the satellite."

"No."

"Detective, it would be in your best interest to agree."

"Bite me, lady."

The woman gave a flat smile, and walked towards Clarisse.

"Detective, do you know what happens when someone bites down on a light bulb?"

"They get a split lip?" He gave the woman a characteristic snarky smile, and tried not to breathe in any of the grit smashed into his cheek. She shook her head as if to say ' _not the right answer, but good try!'_. The woman crouched down in front of the girl, black pumps looking like some sort of weapon in and of themselves. John closed his eyes a moment as he forced himself to breathe and think of a way out.

"No, interestingly enough, they are a bit more damaged than that." Her voice was unnervingly soft, slipping into his ears and wrapping around his spine. It was soft and lovely now, but he could tell that it could screech and shatter his bones if it wanted.

She reached down to Clarisse, brushing a knuckle along her cheek. John clenched his teeth, trying to keep the wave of disgust from overwhelming him. He had already noticed that the drug they had used on him amplified his emotions to ridiculous levels. If he let himself run away with it, pretty soon he would be little more than a set of raw senses and righteous feeling. He opened his eyes and made himself watch, made himself not pay attention to the lights slowly brightening the semidark factory, over exposing it, over exposing the woman in front of him, making everything unbearably white.

"Now. It's the funniest thing, I haven't bothered to discover the physics of yet, but a human jaw can clench very quickly with shocking levels of force, yes? And there are all sorts of delightful little things in light bulbs these days, some of which could be very…unpredictable. Forty years ago, an adult biting down on a light bulb could result in glass shards cutting through enamel, skin, muscles. Glass could be found in the usual places, the lips, the cheeks, the tongue and so on, but there would also be some in very imaginative places. Care to guess?"

"Surprisingly…no."

John pressed his forehead in the ground, trying to see straight, trying not to feel like the whole warehouse was turning over and over and over and over, tossing him from the ceiling to the floor, intestines flipping back and forth, bones popping in and out of place. The wire in his stomach was going to pull lose and spill his insides all over the floor, making him a husk of regrets and a synthetic leg. He could see himself lying there on the floor, blank and empty, helpless as everything fell to chaos around him–

"It has a bit of a kick, doesn't it?" the woman asked, as if she could see inside his head and could tell that John's whole world was absolutely unreal.

John dragged his hands up to his face, bracing his wrists against his temples, trying to anchor himself in the world. The woman gave a soft, dazzling laugh, and continued.

"Now. Documented cases have seen glass in the neck, the throat, and even the lungs. Then add in the more  _exciting_  contents of light bulbs, and even with the force of a child's jaw coming down on it…well, it's probably enough to require a closed casket service, if they ever recover the body."

The woman pulled a light bulb out of her coat pocket. She held it up for John to see, as if she were a show girl from the bygone era of game shows.

"If you do not call this girl's father, and tell him that our group has been neutralized, I will make sure that this girl is breathing glass. Do you understand, Detective?"

"And allow you to crash the security of major corporations the world over? That's not…I can't…I'm not gonna do that."

"That's okay, Detective. I'm a firm believer in second chances. We have a number of different candidates to persuade you, and in a little bit, you will only find yourself back here, laying on the ground as this drug courses through your brain, watching me hold a light bulb, or a knife, or poison, or a gun, or anything really, out in front of a poor little child. We will revisit this moment of your life so many times that you won't know what has happened and what has been a nightmare. And then, after we leave a delicate stream of bodies behind us, you will make that call, and we will win. Now. Is that  _really_  necessary?"

"There's no way you could pull that off," he grunted, staring at her. She shook her head.

"We undoubtedly could. It just would take far more time than I would like. Time is money, and all that."

It wasn't a bluff. For a group that opened welded doors for a living, stealing a herd of children would probably be a joke. John clenched his teeth, glaring at her with all of his might. He knew there was a way out of this, there was  _something_  he could do, but what? Something he had…something he knew?

"I'm not doing it."

The woman smiled at him for a moment, then set the light bulb on the ground. He watched helplessly as she leaned over and moved Clarisse into some sort of upright position, knowing what was coming, seeing it horrifically painted out in his head.

John strained to move closer in some pathetic attempt to stop her, but could only drag himself a few inches with his leg stuck in place. As he moved, he felt something press into his hip.

Hope smashed him in the chest as he remembered the pulse Rudy had given him, which was apparently still in his pants pocket. Apparently they hadn't searched him properly, or had dismissed it for something insignificant.

He moved his arm back, praying that the synthetic he had spotted wouldn't alert the woman as to what he was doing.

"Please, don't," he said, feeling actual fear in his voice as the woman opened Clarisse's mouth, because it was like he was moving in water, and he didn't know if he would be able to get it out and activate it before—before—

"You have another chance, Detective," the woman said, looking at him. "Agree to call Grey, and all of this can be avoided."

John flailed out with his other arm, giving the impression that he was still trying to move towards her so she wouldn't pay attention to the hand scrabbling at his pocket. After a few moments of clumsy straining, he finally managed to get some sort of hold on it, and began wedging it out of his pocket.

"Why are you doing this," he grunted, trying to discreetly find the button on the device. Most likely, he would be unable to move his leg for a while afterwards, but having a dead-weight leg was far better than watching Clarisse be murdered in an exceptionally brutal way.

"Let's just say…my organization has given me a few favors, and it's only polite to return them."

She watched him for a few moments, then gave a flat laugh. She looked back at Clarisse, light bulb held before the girl's face. John felt vaguely sick as he looked at her face, eyes unfocused as she tried to battle the haze the drug had put on her mind. Just a few hours ago, she had been so bright and alert, the epitome of a healthy child.

"I can tell you're not going to shift on the matter. Not without a little persuasion, at least. Now. Just remember, Detective, this is something you could always have prevented."

John grit his teeth as the woman moved to push the bulb in Clarisse's mouth, forcing his fingers to set off the pulse. He knew how risky the whole situation was, but it was his only shot. Even if the pulse couldn't stop her, ideally the sudden lack of power would disorient the woman enough to keep her from hurting Clarisse, giving him enough time to push his way over to her.

"Wait, wait,  _wait!_ " he gasped. The woman hesitated just for a moment, glancing at him in time to see him push the pulse towards her, light flashing as it activated.

* * *

_"Clarisse_!" John half shouted, army-crawling his way over to the girl. He couldn't see, couldn't move his leg, could barely breathe as he bridged the cavern between them. John reached a leg, and for a moment he felt intense relief, but then utter dismay as he realized it wasn't Clarisse, but the woman holding them hostage.

He jerked his hand back, half expecting her to scream or kick at him, but she stayed still. He squinted at her, trying to make out what had happened. She was laying on the ground, sprawled over like something had hit her. But there was nothing that  _could_ have knocked her over. She might have fallen over from shock, be she would have responded by now. John set aside his worries about the woman, because for one reason or another, was out for the count. Clarisse was what he needed to focus on at the moment.

John pushed himself away from the woman, hand finding Clarisse's hand. He suddenly remembered the light bulb, and steeled himself as he moved his hand to her shoulder, to her hair, to her face.

No glass. No torn skin. No blood.

He huffed out a sigh, then spoke to her.

"Clarisse, hey, do you hear me? Are you alright?"

He squinted at her, eyes barely adjusting to the murk. He glanced around, hoping for some potential source of light, but the most he found were the little pinpricks that synthetics gave off when forced into a hard shut down (John counted at least five; clearly he had been lucky they had been acting more as security guards than enforcement).

Clarisse gave a soft sigh, and he felt one of her hands brush his. Relief washed through him, but that was quickly extinguished.

"Hey, Clarisse, listen to me, okay? Look at me, look, it's alright, it's gonna be alright. Do you hear me?" John grabbed the kid by the front of her jacket, jerking her a little bit as he pulled her up. He knew this wasn't exactly protocol for someone that was seconds away from drowning in their own vomit, but the drug they had hit him with was scrambling any sort of composure he might have otherwise summoned, which was a problem, to say the least, because he didn't have much of an idea as to what he was supposed to do in a freezing warehouse with a couple of incapacitated synthetics, a psychopath, a dysfunctional leg, and a frail girl that was barely conscious, with absolutely no way to contact anyone.

John shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to remember what he  _was_ supposed to do in situations like these. He looked at Clarisse again, a pathetic little huddle on the cold floor. She suddenly jerked and vomited. He gasped and turned her so that she wouldn't asphyxiate, and in a moment she was more or less lucid, grabbing blindly at the air. She finally grabbed hold of his hand on her shoulder, and used it to hoist herself up halfway. Clarisse dry heaved and made a sound that sounded like sobbing, which sent a thrill of anxiety down his spine, because he didn't do crying, and he certainly didn't do crying and half dead children.

" _Clarisse!_ " he said, raising his voice. He knew that it would take her a moment to focus in on him, which explained the blank look on her face. She suddenly snapped to as his voice reached her, looked confused and a mess. Clarisse dragged a sleeve over her mouth, then used the other one to smudge away her tears. She sniffed, trying to speak. John gave her a weak smile, trying not to let the rapid, jerking motion of her eyes make his stomach churn.

Clarisse tried to mumble something, but the words came out as a dribble, half sound, half saliva. Finally she managed to say " _Cold—m'cold"_  and offered him a weak smile, making him sigh in relief.

"Okay, Clarisse, we'll be fine, we'll be alright, okay? Just…we just have to think of a plan." He glanced around, trying to see straight. His head was swimming, and the port on his leg was aching, meaning that he was getting too cold. And that was with several layers on. Who knew how Clarisse was feeling right now.

He tugged her to his chest, feeling her shudder as he zipped his jacket around her. It was a tight fit, but Clarisse was alert enough to crush herself against his chest, folding her arms between them.

"How're you so  _warm?_ " she asked, the words still wobbly and horribly slurred ( _hur yuzo urm?)._ John forced a laugh, and closed his eyes, trying to think.

"It's the jacket. It's got a special lining in it that emits heat once the outside temperature dips below a certain point."

John scanned the factory, allowing himself to slip into teaching mode. Explaining things to people made him feel a little better in tense situations like this, because it made him feel more like he was in control. Being able to explain things meant he knew something, and knowing something was the first step to making a plan. Even if the information he was spouting out didn't have a freaking thing to do with his current situation, he could pretend that things were a  _little_  bit easier to manage.

_Okay, John, what can you do? It's cold, you're both suffering from some unknown hallucinogenic drug, you have no idea where you are, and you need to get out of here. What do you do, what do you do, what do you do._

He thought briefly about staying in the factory, but the synthetics would only be out of commission for so long, and he was in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with them.

"What happened to her?" Clarisse whispered, breaking through his thoughts. He glanced at the woman, able to see a little better now. He blinked in surprise when he noticed that there was the barest smudge of light peaking out of her shirt. John moved closer, pulling back her collar to see a small blue pin light on the edge of the woman's collar bone, the same that had lit up on the shut down synthetics.

"She's a  _robot_?" Clarisse asked, sounding a little bit impressed. John shook his head, a bit of understanding clunking into place.

"No, she was human. She was just…an  _android_."

Androids as the past had seen them were extremely expensive and extremely illegal. As the technologies developed, the government had quickly clamped down on such thoughts, as they saw the problems posed by programmable superhumans to be numerous and exceptionally cruel to the subjects themselves. Robotic based prosthetics were benign enough, but any surgery to have robots enhance or replace a part of the body vital to living was forbidden by the law. Nowadays, if a person had enough money and connections, they could get a black market surgeon to give them an electronic organ, but that was a perilous undertaking. One false move and a person could have battery acid leaking into their lungs. Plus the kind of replacements used were often cheap and second hand. The kind of electronics implied by the light in the woman's chest was far more than the sort of job people could normally have done.

_Let's just say…my organization has given me a few favors, and it's only polite to return them._

So that's what Verge had done to earn such loyalty to the woman. They had replaced her insides with robotics, and set her on the world.

"So that thing you set off, it knocked them out?"

"For now," he said, then made a quick decision. "Okay, Clarisse, we're gonna try going to the door there."

"Do you need me to get down?" she asked, sounding a little bit more like she had back at the house.

He paused, then checked his leg. It had been quietly humming for the last minute or so, meaning that it had rebooted at least a little bit. Prosthetics generally faired better than other electronics after pulses like the one John had just set off. The push in a different form of circuitry had come after a bundle of lawsuits following a number of terrorist attacks using electromagnetic pulses five years ago. Thankfully for John, that meant it would at least turn on shortly after the pulse went off.

"Uhm, sure. Let's get you moving, warm you up a little more."

He unzipped the coat and let Clarisse down. She was a little shaky standing up, using his shoulder as a brace, but in a few moments they were off together, making their way to the door.

They were largely silent as they walked to the door, focusing on not spinning off their heads as the last of the drug worked its way through their system. John did better than Clarisse, but he still had to pause and make sure that he really was headed in a straight line. Finally, after what felt like ages of hobbling in the dark, they reached the wall. Now that they were closer, John could see a sliver of the outline of a door a few feet away. He moved towards it, prayed that it wasn't rigged, and pushed it open.

Freezing air immediately shoved its way into the warehouse, nearly knocking John back. He shuddered as  _snow,_  of all things, landed on him, and squinted past it.

Everything was white. Snow covered  _everything_  he could see, and not just a dusting either. This was a good old fashioned  _dumping_ of snow, enough to make every single thing shapeless and indeterminate. The sky was the heavy grey white of clouds, and in the distance he could see the promising grey mounds of snow covered hills.

Clarisse nudged her head past him into the door way, giving out an impressed  _'oh…'_ as she took everything in. John looked at her, wondering why on earth she would a tone bordering on reverence when facing what was quite possibly the worst thing that could have happened to them naturally. Even if they hadn't suffering the side effects of having recently been drugged to the teeth, there was no way they could have gone even a mile before they flat out froze to death.

Clarisse seemed to sense his frustration as she gave a shy shrug as said "I've never s-s-seen snow bef-f-fore."

John gave a black laugh, because  _really,_  there wasn't much of a worse first impression in the world. Clarisse didn't seem bothered, though, as she reached around the door frame and pulled the door closed.

"Ok-k-kay, Detective, what n-now?"

Clarisse had her arms wrapped around her, and her teeth were chattering from the few seconds the door had been open. John grit a few swears through his teeth, and yanked off his coat. He wrapped it around her shoulders, and hurried her away from the door.

"We've gotta think, Clarisse," he said, ignoring how freakin' cold he was without his extra layer. "What can we do?"

"Th-there wouldn't be anyth-th-thing we could-we could use to get out of here?"

"No, they wouldn't be that careless. We've got to…we've got to contact my unit somehow."

"Can't we call them?"

"No, we can't  _call them._ Our kidnappers wouldn't just leave a few cell phones laying around for us to use."

"What about the MXes?"

"What about them? They don't need phone because…they have communicators built in."

He stared at Clarisse, then grabbed her by the shoulders. She gave him a satisfied smile, still huddled up in his coat and looking more or less like a half drowned cat. He stared at her for a moment, realized he really had no idea what to say to compliment her, then said, "Hold on," and turned around.

John hobbled back to one of the fallen synthetics, and pulled off its shirt. After synthetics had been introduced as an official part of the police force, all of the human members had been taught how to use parts of a synthetic to make a form of radio. It wasn't much more than a distress signal and a speaker, but it would certainly be enough to catch someone's attention. First thing he needed, though, was a light.

As he surveyed the synthetic, Clarisse walked over to him. He felt her crouched beside him, not saying a word as she watched him work.

"What are you doing?"

"Making a distress signal."

"Don't you need light for—oh," she said as he managed to activate a light in the robot's left eye. It was a feature of one of the older models, one that had quickly been changed as people had complained that a light shining out of one of the robot's eyes to be disturbing. The complaints had flooded in, and soon enough a new version had come out with the light firmly situated on the left index finger.

"You might not want to look for this part," he grunted, giving her just enough time to look away from the synthetic's face to his as he pulled the eye out of the socket, and aimed it at its chest.

"Oh my gosh," she breathed, sounding vaguely disgusted when she glanced back.

"Told you not to look," he said, shrugging as he rooted through the exposed chest cavity. It was a little bizarre, carefully picking his way through the myriad of pink wires and inner workings, all of which felt vaguely like human tissue. John grimaced as he located the part he needed, and quickly reworked the wires.

"How is this even working?" she asked after a moment, not taking her eyes off of his hands. "Did that thing you set off knock out the power?"

"Yes, but that shut down their main computer. This is working on reserve battery power. Their computers won't be up for another…half an hour or so," he added, waving around to encompass the different synthetics in the building. Clarisse gave him a small smile, but didn't look overly reassured.

Clarisse observed everything with a dark interest, even going so far as to adjust the light for him (which was impressive, as she had barely even shuddered when she picked up the fake eye). He didn't mind, because she didn't ask many questions, and she was close enough to him that the heat from his jacket radiated into his side, somewhat warming him up. He still had to stop a couple of times to try to warm up his hands, each time giving Clarisse a comforting smile as she shifted with guilt over wearing his coat.

Finally, after a few intense minutes of working, John sat back on his heels, satisfied.

"You're done?"

"Absolutely. Now we just need to…"

Just as John reached to turn on the signal, the light died.

" _Dammit,_ " he hissed, shaking the eye stalk in a vague hope of it turning back on.

"What happened?!" Clarisse asked, a thrill of panic in her voice.

"Battery died. We need to power it another way."

"How're we gonna do  _that,"_  she demanded, sounding perilously close to tears. He put a hand on her shoulder, turning the girl to face him.

" _Hey._  We're gonna get out of here, but only if you don't start freaking out on me. Okay?"

She nodded, but upon seeing his look, she mumbled out a quick " _Okay._ "

"Alright, good. Now, take these."

"But what—"

_"Take them."_

Clarisse pushed back the too-long sleeves of his coat, then held out her hands for the two wires he was holding out.

"What are these for?"

"Making a circuit," he said, then started rolling up his pant leg. Clarisse began to say something, then gasped when she saw the prosthetic. She stared at him, then his, leg, then back at his face, until he finally said, "Close your mouth, staring's rude."

She closed her mouth, though her eyes still looked like they were about to fall out of her head. He rolled his eyes, but didn't push the matter.

John disconnected his leg, then slipped it out of his pant leg. He held out his hands for the wires, and then connected them to the charging ports in the prosthetic. Once both wires were connected, the light sprang back to life on the synthetic, making Clarisse jump.

"It's fine now? You can make it work?"

"What do you mean, it  _is_ working!" John said, feeling a thrill of relief because,  _finally_ , something was going right.

He started the distress signal,  _praying_  that someone would pick it up before the battery on his leg died.

"How did you lose it?" Clarisse asked after a moment, voice soft. He glanced at her, then shrugged.

"I was in a raid, and there was an explosion."

She nodded, looking like she wanted to ask another question, but then seemed to think better of it.

They sat there for a few minutes, huddled together as they watched their breath slowly form clouds in the air before them, and tried not to think about the electronic and human carcasses that surrounded them. At some point Clarisse leaned into his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her (more to absorb warmth than anything). Eventually she asked "Do you think anyone's going to find us?"

John looked down at her, swimming in his coat and looking like she very much wanted to run away from this nightmare. Some largely dormant instinct within John told him to squeeze her shoulders and put on a confident air as he said, "'Course. We just have to sit here, looking pretty, while we wait for them to come."

"But shouldn't they be responding?" she asked. John didn't answer.

A few minutes and several terse commands at Clarisse to  _not go to sleep_  later, a sound finally came over on the synthetic's speaker.

" _John, John is that you_?"

John jolted upright at the sound of Dorian's scratchy voice, and scrambled for the signal. If he disconnected one of the wires, then he would cut off the signal, allowing for a close approximation of Morse code.

Clarisse leaned in as he tapped out a quick affirmative, grabbing hold of his sleeve. They waited with bated breath for Dorian's response.

"John, man, I'm so glad to hear from you! Is Clarisse with you?"

_Y-E-S_

_"_ Okay. Your signal's weak, but it has to be coming from within the city. Do you have any idea where you are?"

_S-N-O-W_

"Snow? Did you say  _'snow'?_ "

_Y-E-S_

There was a pause, then Dorian said, "John, I think you're in an underground ski range. It was supposed to be shut down for repairs a month ago, but the company listed to do repairs has been connected with Verge. Are you two alright?"

_C-O-L-D_

"Alright, we already have a patrol headed out to find you. Stay protected, and we should have you two out soon."

_H-U-R-R-Y-M-X-G-U-A-R-D-S_

"What happened to them?"

_P-U-L-S-E_

"Okay. John, Clarisse, you two are going to be okay, alright? They'll find you."

 _"Oh my goodness, thank you,_ " Clarisse huffed, sagging into John's side as she seemed to breathe for the first time since Dorian had picked up. John smiled and gave her a sort of comforting head pat, then turned back to their makeshift radio as Dorian asked, "Anything else to add?"

_N-O-L-E-G_

"Okay, Peg Leg Pete, we're coming to get you."


End file.
